Dress-stay



A (No Modl.)

B. T. DURFEE.

DRESS STAY. 5

No. 575,598. l v Patented Jan. 19, 1897.

UNITED STATES BENJAMIN 'l. DURFEE, `OF WICHITA, KANSAS.

DRESS-STAY.

` SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 575,598, datedJanuary 19, 189'?.

` Application tiled January 13, 1896. Serial No. 575,314. (No model.)

To @ZZ whom t may concern:

Be it known that I, BENJAMIN T. DURFEE, a citizen of the United States,residing at Wichita, in the county of Sedgwick and State of Kansas, haveinvented certain new and useful Improvements in Dress-Stays; and I dohereby declare the following to be afull, clear, and exact descriptionof the invention, such as will enable others skilled in the art to whichit appertains to make and use the same.

A dress stay or stiffener as usually constructed consists of a thin flatstrip or piece of steel or other similar flexible and resilient materialenveloped in a casing of textile material permanently secured thereto.These stays generally come from the manufacturer in lengths of seven,eight, nine, and ten inches, requiring the dealer to keep all of suchsizes in stock. In tting these stays to dresses to adjust them tofractions of an inch it is necessary to cut off the required length whentoo long, which is a very vexatious operation and which frequentlyresults in ruining the stay or so injuring the same as to make a perfectfit impossible. Vhen the stays are too short, it is necessary to replacethem with longer ones.

The object of my invention is to produce a dress-stay which can bereadily adjusted, so as to increase or decrease its length; and itconsists, essentially, in two sections, the inner ends of which overlapeach other and are provided with a series of holes adapted to registerwith each other, an inclosing casing of textile material permanentlysecured at one end to one of said sections, but disconnected from theother section, and means for holding said sections in their adjustedpositions, as will be hereinafter fully described and claimed.

In the accompanying drawings, Figure lis a dress-stay constructed inaccordance with my invention. Fig. 2 is a similar View with the casingcut away to show the resilient sections. Fig. 3 is a cross-section ofthe stay.

In the said drawings the reference-numeral 1 designates one of thesections, consisting of a thin fiat strip of steel or other similarflexible and resilient material, provided with a hole 2 near its outerend, one or more holes 3 near the center, and a hole 4 near the innerend.

The numeral 5 designates the other section, of similar material, havinga hole 6 near its outer end and a series of holes 7 at the inner end atshort intervals or distances from each other.

The numeral 8 designates the casing or covering, consisting of twostrips of any suitable textile material somewhat wider than saidsections and stitched together near the edges, forming a pocket in whichsaid sections are located. One end of this casing or pocket is securedto section l by an eyelet 9, passing therethrough and through the hole2, and is also secured to one of the strips of the section between itsends by a similar eyelet passing through the hole 3. rlhe opposite endof the casing is open and disconnected from the section 5, which fitsloosely therein. The said casing is of a length equal to the greatestextent to which the sections can be adjusted, and the said sections maybe held stationary with respect to each other by stitching or sewingthrough the casin g and the holes 3 and 7 in the said sections.

When fitting the stay to a dress, the threads which hold said sectionstogether are cut, where the inner ends of the sections can be moved uponeach other, so as to bring the outer ends of the same nearer together orfarther apart, as the case may be, and thus decrease or increase thelength of the stay. The said sections are then secured in their adjustedpositions by again sewing through the holes 3 and 7 or the holes 4 and7, and the disconnected end of the casing or that end which is notsecured to the section 5 is turned back upon the stay and stitched tothe casing, or said end may be cut oif and the casing secured to thesection 5 by an eyelet passing through the hole 6 in the outer endthereof, or said end may be simply sewed.

From the above it will be seen that the stay can be readily adjusted tovary its length without the necessity of cutting off the stiffeningmaterial or strip, enabling dressmakers to easily fit them todress-waists of different lengths and rendering it unnecessary fordealers to carry a number of different lengths of stays in stock, as isnow the custom.

Having thus fully described my invention, what I claim is l. As animproved article a dress-stay consisting of two iiexible and resilientstiieners, the inner ends of which overlap and are movable upon eachother, each having` a hole near its outer end and a series of holes nearits inner end, the two series being so located as to register with cachother and the casing or pocket of textile material in which saidsections are located, permanently secured to one of said sections butdisconnected from the other section, substantially as described.

2. As an improved article a dress-stay consisting of two flexible andresilient sections, the inner ends of which overlap and are Inovableupon each other and formed with a hole near the outer ends and with aseries of registering holes at the inner or overlapping ends, thecasing` or pocket of textile material in which said sections arelocated, permanently secured at one end to one of said scctions but theother end free or disconnected from the other section and means fortemporarily securing1 the free sections to the casing, substantially asdescribed.

3. In a dress-stay, the combination with the overlappin g' sectionsmovable upon each other and having a series of holes at their inner endsand a hole near their outer ends, of the casing or pocket of textilematerial in which said sections are located, the eyelet at 011e endthereof passing through the hole at the outer end of one of saidsections, the eyelct passing through the intermediate hole and theopposite end of said casing closed but not connected with the othersection, substantially as described.

In testimony whereof I affix my signature in presence of two witnesses.

BENJAMIN T. DURFEE.

Titnessesz L. F. IIARsoN, JOHN C. KELLY.

